Celtics hope to repeat 2008 Game 5 success

HOWARD ULMAN

Tuesday

Apr 28, 2009 at 12:01 AMApr 28, 2009 at 8:02 PM

WALTHAM, Mass. — The Boston Celtics are back home where they won three Game 5s on their way to the NBA championship last season. They want to do it again tonight or risk being a stunning first-round playoff casualty two days later in the noisy building of the young Chicago Bulls.

WALTHAM, Mass. — The Boston Celtics are back home where they won three Game 5s on their way to the NBA championship last season.

They want to do it again tonight or risk being a stunning first-round playoff casualty two days later in the noisy building of the young Chicago Bulls.

“I don’t look back on last year,” the Celtics’ Ray Allen said Monday. “I just know what the task is at hand right now, and that’s to beat the team that I feel we’ve given confidence to early in games that we’ve lost.”

The best-of-seven Eastern Conference series is tied at 2, and the Bulls’ victories required extra effort.

They won the opener 105-103 in overtime and Game 4, 121-118 in two overtimes on Sunday. Ben Gordon’s 3-point shot with 4.5 seconds left sent that game into a second overtime, a gutty
performance after he had strained his left hamstring in the second quarter.

An MRI Monday confirmed the diagnosis and Gordon was listed as day-to-day, though he said Sunday he thought he’d play.

Poor defense and missed shots by the Celtics earlier in those losses set the stage for the dramatic finishes.

“We have a tendency . . . to talk about what happened at the end of the game,’’ Allen said. “But the tape shows you what happens consistently throughout the game and why you ultimately end up in the predicament that you end up in.”

Last year Boston was tied 2-2 in its series with Atlanta, Cleveland and Detroit, going on to beat the Hawks and Cavaliers in seven games and the Pistons in six. They won the NBA title in six games over the Los Angeles Lakers.

But that team had Kevin Garnett, Leon Powe, James Posey and P.J. Brown as part of a defensively intimidating frontcourt. In these playoffs Garnett and Powe are sidelined with knee injuries, Posey is with the New Orleans Hornets and Brown is retired.

“We’re short-handed and we’re trying to work our way through that,” Boston coach Doc Rivers said.

Rivers said he won’t allow his players to complain about fouls. Then he did that himself while dropping a hint for tonight’s officials.

“I’ve got to say this about Perk. Clearly, every game he’s being targeted for these moving screens,” Rivers said. “He gets them called every game and, watching that tape (Sunday) night, there were two (fouls) that he did move in the direction but there was zero contact.

“Brad Miller, on the other hand, is flying around. He’s laying guys out on screens and didn’t get one of those called,” Rivers said of Chicago’s backup center. “That bothers you.”

After a grueling fourth game — seven of the 10 starters played at least 45 minutes — neither team practiced Monday.

But with three very close games and only one blowout — a 107-86 thrashing by the Celtics in Game 3 — both teams already know plenty about each other.

“Ray Allen gets (his shot) up so quick, it’s tough,” said Kirk Hinrich, who came off the bench to play 43 minutes Sunday. “(Rajon) Rondo is constantly getting in the paint, and Paul Pierce is one of the best scorers in the league.

“It’s tough, but they definitely do a good job of screening. In the playoffs, you get away with a little more with the screens. You just have to be tough enough to get through it and still be able to challenge shots.”

Rivers is more concerned about the Celtics’ defense. He felt they switched off the men they were guarding too often Sunday — “we can’t make up our own defenses on the fly,” Rivers said. And they didn’t foul when it would have helped, like when Gordon hit his tying 3-pointer over Pierce.

“I think the play threw them off,” Gordon said. “They really didn’t know what to do. Paul got out to me pretty well because I couldn’t catch and shoot like I wanted to, but I managed to get a good shot off.”

Now the Celtics will be playing before friendly fans. They feel they’re in good enough shape to recover from Sunday’s tiring effort. They know they’re just two overtime losses from having swept the best-of-seven series and resting for the second round.

And now that they’re home, they hope more calls will go in their favor.

“I’m expecting all the calls to go against us” on the road, Perkins said, but “we still should have won the game.”
In last season’s fifth games, the Celtics beat Atlanta 110-85, Cleveland 96-89 and Detroit 106-102.

But in the current series, their best player, Garnett, has been sitting on the bench in a tie and jacket.

“We can’t live off of last year,” Perkins said. “This is our first real test here.”

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